No that wouldn't have allowed for containing the spread. All it takes is one carrier getting through from "necessary" air travel or illegal immigration or whatever and then the exponential spread starts in a new area. Thus uncontrolled spread was inevitable in most countries. The only exceptions are a few isolated places like New Zealand which can actually control all arrivals.

Fewer cases means tracking them is still feasible. Exponential growth can only happen after officials are overwhelmed with cases. Shutting down air travel probably would have relieved pressure enough to follow up on cases - doubling rate tells us beginning of February would still have bought us the necessary time. Beginning of March to mid of March it was game over already I agree.

Case tracking hasn't really been effective even in areas with limited spread. It's a failed strategy. Exponential growth starts immediately as soon as there's one contagious carrier, although it takes a couple weeks for absolute numbers to grow really large.

What about South Korea? Mask mandates? In addition to lockdowns. I mean it’s multiple things that politicians and officials had to get right of course. Unfortunately >90% really failed us on that practically everywhere.

South Korea has a growing number of cases.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-kore...

Mask mandates can be marginally useful in slowing down the spread on a temporary, limited basis. But they're obviously unsustainable. The virus is here to stay and asymptomatic people aren't going to wear masks forever. Much of the spread takes place inside private homes where no one wears masks.

I thought we were still talking about the beginning of the pandemic? South Korea did fend off the virus through contact tracing, mask mandates and lockdowns early on. Unfortunately most other countries did too little too late which was my original point.

The result being that by now we have a full blown ever-pandemic at hand - which includes South Korea by definition.

Why do you say "air travel" and not "international travel"? Before COVID got here, domestic air travel was perfectly safe, and a boat from China is just as capable of carrying COVID as a plane from China is.

I agree especially in dense places like Europe (thinking of Italy outbreak) early border shutdown for non essential travelling would have helped in addition down the line. I’m not sure boat travel is comparable to air travel in both mass and interconnection around the globe. It would probably have also been warranted but main driver here was globalization / air travel.